Attendants dressed as "Goddesses of Wealth" carry "fortune puppies" as part of a promotion event outside a shopping mall in Hong Kong January 23, 2006. Retailers in the territory are arranging various kinds of cultural performances in a bid to boost sales before the Chinese Lunar New Year of the Dog which falls on January 29. REUTERS/Bobby Yip Ran on: 01-29-2006
Attendants dressed as goddesses of wealth carry &quo;fortune puppies&quo; as part of Year of the Dog promotions outside a shopping mall in Hong Kong. less

Attendants dressed as "Goddesses of Wealth" carry "fortune puppies" as part of a promotion event outside a shopping mall in Hong Kong January 23, 2006. Retailers in the territory are arranging various kinds of ... more

Photo: BOBBY YIP

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Li Xi (left) with her friend at the dog-meat restaurant in Beijing. Photo by Jehangir S. Pocha/Special to The Chronicle

Li Xi (left) with her friend at the dog-meat restaurant in Beijing. Photo by Jehangir S. Pocha/Special to The Chronicle

Photo: Jehangir S. Pocha/Special To The

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New year food for thought / Animal lovers face off against fans of exotic delicacy, forcing some Chinese to reconsider their taste in dogs

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2006-01-29 04:00:00 PDT Beijing -- The status of dogs has always spanned a strange spectrum here, from domestic pet to culinary delicacy. Now, people on both sides of the divide are poised for confrontation during the Year of the Dog, which begins today.

Animal lovers in Beijing are demanding that canine meat be taken off supermarket shelves and restaurant menus. As many as 10 million dogs are slaughtered annually in China, according to the AnimalsAsiaFoundation in Hong Kong, where selling dog meat is banned.

"It's just not right that we eat dogs. Dog-eating was never part of our tradition," said Ou Yang, a former Beijing official who is a member of a citizens group petitioning the government to ban dog meat consumption, which has become more prevalent in recent years. "With economic development, some people have started the habit because it's exotic and they want to try new things. But I believe that as China develops, we should develop our society the right way and refine our civilization."

Such sentiment holds little sway with office worker Lu Xi, who enjoys the tender flavor of canine meat and shudders at the idea of keeping a dog as pet.

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"Why are these people doing this?" she asked, while eating at one of Beijing's best-known restaurants for dog meat. "It's not like we are eating their dogs."

The manager, who gave his name only as Jin and asked a reporter not to name his restaurant, also appeared mystified over a debate about animals that "taste best if cooked for a very long time over a very slow fire." He says his restaurant's meat comes fresh each morning from a dog breeder just outside the city.

In their petition to the government, Yang's pro-pooch group said breeders often use cruel methods. According to recent reports by animal rights activists and local journalists, dogs generally are choked, then clubbed over the head before being skinned and boiled. Some are skinned alive for their fur.

Though China bears the brunt of negative publicity for being the world's largest consumer of dog meat, the practice exists across North Asia and is common even in such industrialized nations as South Korea. Though Seoul officials banned dog-eating when it hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics, the Korean Society for the Protection of Animals says it is not uncommon for residents to scour neighborhoods for "edible" dogs to sell for meat.

For years, China's communists considered pet ownership a bourgeois pastime and demonized dogs as unclean creatures that posed a grave health threat to public hygiene. But as times have changed, so have official attitudes.

Dog mania began in the 1990s, becoming fashionable among China's nouveau-riche, who still spend hundreds of dollars on dog spas, gourmet meals and designer collars. But pets have also become popular as companions for children, who grow up without siblings because of the nation's "one child" policy, the unemployed and lonely seniors, who are often displaced from their communities because of huge urban reconstruction projects, according to Ma Zhenchuan, director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security, the agency in charge of dog registration.

Currently, 1 in 9 Chinese owns a dog. And in the past year, the number of licensed dogs has increased from 130,000 to 410,000 in Beijing alone, according to the Economist magazine. Municipal officials say there are 1 million dogs in Beijing.

But there are still restrictions.

A family can own no more than one dog, which is subject to euthanasia if it surpasses 15 inches in height. And to avoid "inconveniencing" commuters, dogs can be walked only at dawn or dusk.

In an effort to win Chinese hearts and minds, Beijing dog lovers recently started a petition to ban dog meat from inside the city's Science and Technology Museum, which hosted a special exhibition to celebrate the dog-human relationship. Visitors were greeted with giant blow-up photos of puppies in ingratiatingly cute poses and a red banner that proclaimed, "Dogs are human companions." A section dedicated to the dogs of world leaders included Bill Clinton and Buddy, the White House Labrador who was killed by a car in 2002.

Meanwhile, the increasing status of dogs hasn't changed the appetite for canine chowder.

At lunchtime recently, Jin's restaurant was filled with diners ordering a pale-looking soup especially popular during winter months. "It's a nice, hearty dish for a cold day like this," Jin said as he scanned his patrons.

The restaurateur, however, conceded that he may be out of business before too long.

"There's talk the government will ban dog-eating before the (2008) Olympics," as Seoul did, he said. "They're concerned about China's image, not the dogs."